Roads They Didn't Travel:Intoxicating Little Games
by vieralynn
Summary: Noah/Penelo/Basch, Vaan, Noah/Ashe/Basch, Noah/Fran/Basch. After the Pharos. A vague AU. Written partly as a series of requests on LJ.
1. Intoxicating Little Games

_After the battle on top of the Pharos, Penelo found a way to convince Gabranth to join the party. Our story begins with a vignette of a night in the Ridorana Cataract, before returning to Balfonheim... (7 chapters in total have been planned, outlined, and drafted.)_

* * *

**Intoxicating Little Games**

Penelo giggles after uncorking another potion and applying one more spell. Her two patients—her identical swordsmen—have finally found peace from their pain.

She has always liked how Basch looks sweet, almost bashful, when she insists on tending his wounds. Usually he claims he can do without, but he stills the moment she raises her hands to heal him. And now she knows his brother, Noah, and she likes the way he pouts with raised chin, and casts a look of doubt after she says he'll fall ill if he does not drink another ether. Nonetheless, he sips from the phial as she holds it to his lips and never once do his eyes leave hers as he swallows.

She is amazed by the perfect similitude of their features. They recline just to the left and right of where she sits, and she thinks of games they could play to see if she can always tell them apart. She wonders what sort of mischief they got into when they were her age. Later, she will ask them.

Her pink toes press against the skin of Basch's arm and pull away before he can snatch them. They play at this again and again; Basch laughs and she cannot stop giggling when Noah complains.

"Beyond the pale light of our lantern lurk hostile creatures who wait for us to mistakenly drop our guard. This foolishness only invites them."

Noah lies on his side, behind her, curled around her, and the heat from his bare stomach dampens the back of her cotton shirt. The night is balmy and she is awash in excitement.

"Don't worry, I'm keeping watch," she says.

"You are playing." Noah squeezes her leg and Penelo's chest swells with pleasure. She knows the power she can hold over them.

Basch's hand drops, covering her toes. "She keeps guard well. I trained her and I always protect her from the worst."

"You claim to protect her, yet you do this? You're a fool. You'll get her killed and then what will you think?" Noah swallows two syllables of a vulgar phrase, but he quiets the moment she leans back, once her weight falls against his ribs. His arm encircles her. She can feel him breathe.

She gazes at one and then the other.

"You shouldn't listen to him," Noah whispers as she smiles at Basch. "When young, he never showed discipline in the field. Never. Now, we should quiet ourselves, and listen for what watches from beyond."

Penelo knows they will kiss once she lies against Noah's body and she wants to learn how his lips feel when touching her skin. Basch has closed his eyes.

As she slides down to settle in Noah's arms, she is unable to stop thinking about her girlfriends in the village along the Nebra and how they will clutch her hands and giggle and shriek when she tells them that Basch has an identical twin and that she has slept with both of them.


	2. The Ninth Morning

**The Ninth Morning  
**

It is morning. The breath of the salty sea fills the air. Nine nights have passed since everything changed atop the Pharos. This is the first morning in nearly a month that Penelo has woken up in a soft feather bed. She doesn't want to give up this precious luxury she has found.

A man sleeps along side of her, his arm locked around her waist, his face buried in her unbraided hair. She touches his hand as she traces a slow switchback path up and down the length of his sturdy fingers. The pad of her index finger stops to mark invisible circles on each of his familiar fingernails. But this is not the hand of a familiar man. Penelo closes her eyes and covers his hand with her own. She pretends it is Basch clutching her to his chest even when soundly asleep. Basch has never held her like this, never held her while lost in sleep, arms gripping her as close as possible, fighting off the fear that she might suddenly slip away and with her all the world threatens to be lost. Such deathless devotion is not Basch's nature. He is a man who is pledged to noble ideals and were he ever to display such intimate devotion to another, he would no longer be the Basch she knows. She likes him how he is.

Penelo opens her eyes to the morning light, to the sea breeze lifting the curtains in the window. The man curled around her is Basch's brother and even in his charmed state, she can tell he seeks what his brother does not. It saddens her to think that this will soon come to an end.

Twisting her torso, she turns inside Noah's tight embrace. He murmurs half formed words into her hair asking her to stay. She answers his wishes. With her face pressed into the hollow of his neck, she slowly lets her weight fall on him as he rolls onto his back. Their legs intermingle, her pelvis presses into his hip. He sighs sleepy pleasure as his hands settle in newfound places: one hand warming the small of her back, the other grasping her shoulder.

Noah's arms are thicker than his brothers and the muscles across his chest are harder and more defined. Much like his brother, the surface of his skin is marked with scars yet Noah's record of misfortune suggests different tales. Over the nights, Penelo coaxed him to tell each of his stories. For most Noah recalled tales steeped in pride, punctuated with pain. For some Noah said little as he frowned and Penelo had to fill in the silent gaps with words she had heard earlier from his brother. When Noah fell silent at night, he would press his face against hers or kiss the top of her breasts through her clothing. Firelight danced in his pleading eyes but he never voiced what he wanted. Penelo was left to guess. Sometimes she would hold him or kiss him, other times she would undress him and herself and she would lie back as he covered her with his naked body. The paths and boundaries of the scars on his arms, shoulders, sides, and back became a living landscape she memorized by touch. His muscles would flex and strain, yet he always moved slowly and steadily until he came inside her and whispered the name of some other woman he would never mentioned any other time.

Now they're back in Balfonheim, back under Archadian jurisdiction, and here she should set Noah free. This needs to be easy, needs to be done without feelings of harm. She knows from the last few mornings that Noah complains when she tries to get up before him. She doesn't want him to wake. Without a movement or a sound, she recites the words of a sleep spell in her mind. She waits until he sighs and his breath drops into a slow, heavy rhythm. When she is certain he will not wake, she untangles herself from his limbs and sits upright.

She pulls his left hand into her lap, his fingers are lax and unresponsive. One last time, she touches the calluses on the mounds of his palm but she does not lace her fingers with his as they have done before. Instead, she slips a silver bracelet from his wrist. A shimmer of mist flashes and fades around his arm. He grasps for her, but she puts a pillow in his arm instead.

She stands and she places the bracelet in the center of an empty bedside table. He will see it when he wakes. She knows he is well versed in the magicks of manipulative mist. He has told her stories of illegal items and with much satisfaction in his voice, he shared how tracked them down and his methods for identifying their properties. He'll recognized the inscriptions engraved on the inside of the bracelet he has worn for the last nine days. Then he will rise from bed and look out the window to see the Port of Balfonheim. He will understand how he was led back into the Empire, back to safety, and away from the dangers of the sun-cryst. He will forgive her, she believes, but she doesn't want to be with him when he wakes. Let Basch calm Noah instead.

Penelo bends forward to touch Noah's cropped hair. He snores softly. She does not kiss him even though they have now kissed so many times his lips feel familiar. She hardly makes a sound as she dresses. When she leaves, the door clicks quietly behind her.


	3. A Day to Forget, part 1

**A Day To Forget - Part 1**_**  
**_

A ring of condensation glistens on the bar's varnished wood and marks the place where Gabranth's glass had sat. He knocks back another gulp of gin. The alcohol no longer blazes a trail of fire down his throat but the ice jabs a knife up through his front teeth. He drops his heavy arm to the bar and sends the glass sliding. Glass on varnished wood roars like a river in miniature, a waterfall churning to the sea. The bartender catches it, his waiting hand cupped and ready.

Gabranth jerks his chin toward the bottle on the shelf. The bartender doesn't question the man's wisdom. Instead, he pours an unmeasured gush of gin over melting ice as Gabranth uses his thumb to smear the ring of water on the bar and wipe the wetness on his trouser leg. It is quarter to eleven in the morning and he plans to sit where he is until a better idea comes to him. He's already dropped enough gil on the bar for good week's take, forcing the bartender to put up with him.

Turning his glass between his fingers, the ice cubes slide against each other, melting along the surface of the other's touch. The silver bracelet he wore sits on a white handkerchief stamped with the Imperial crest. He should turn it in to the appropriate authorities and sign paperwork ordering its destruction, but he suspects it would find its way to Draklor's scientists instead. He will not risk this as he does not want the Imperial Army to know he is still alive.

The air shimmers above the bracelet's metal band, a mist storm captured in miniature that circles an eye of calm in the space where the bracelet would encircle a person's wrist. Etchings glow on the inward face, an endless repetition of a charm known to be whispered by Lea Monde's dancers. Even if he hadn't known what power this bracelet holds, it reeks with contraband magick. Gabranth wonders how a group of sky pirates came to possess it. The girl who slipped this on his wrist did not dress as a dancer-priestess and Mullenkamp's followers are loathe to let their secrets fall into the hands of the uninitiated.

Dousing fire with fire, he gulps his drink, a final gesture to forget the slaughter of lies spoken by the silver tongued emperor's son. Vayne has descended into madness, a huntsman who sends his dogs to chase a scent marked in deception. No act of retribution can ever wash clean the blood staining Gabranth's hands. He has been reduced to nothing more than a sword, a blade poisoned by his own pain and left to rust. The Empire has betrayed him.

He realizes his face is wet and he wipes his cheeks with the backs of his hands. He is powerless to stop the wash of tears flooding his lower lids. Even though he cries, his vision does not blur. He thinks this ironic. For years he had been blind to all the warnings cast before him. If only his blindness could return but right now it is easier to drown in a numbing sea.

It was once easier just to comply.

Gabranth pokes a dull finger at the metal band. Wearing it had been even easier.

He passes his hand over the shimmering storm of air hovering above the bracelet. The mist pushes against him, a soft pressure that forms the outline of a shape. He can feel it almost as if it something solid and this reminds him of the mist creature with Cidophus – the creature who appeared like a goddess. She held the strength to stop the electrochemical signals in his body and she left him limp, a child's doll, something powerless to be thrown against the wall and discarded. He remembered nothing after that until the girl – Penelo – revived him with phoenix feathers and potions. And then he remembered nothing at all. Nothing of pain.

.

.

.

Beaten down to his bones, he saw a flash of metal in the healer's palm. Not a dagger. As the girl tugged at his left gauntlet, he began to suspect what she might do. 'We can't have any more losses,' she said. 'Not today. Not after Reddas. And this is just what a sky pirate has to do. It's just– you can't stay here. The cryst looks like it will explode.'

He lay there, looking up at where a stone pillar met the ceiling, up where he had been slammed, where he hit his head and his helm was knocked loose. That blow sucked him dry of his will. His body fell to the ground, an empty husk, a dried leaf ready to crumble, to decompose. He let the girl fuss with his gauntlet and press metal to his wrist. When she was ready, he flexed his fingers outward and let her pull his plated glove back over his hand.

'Noah, you need to get up. You need to follow me.' Her fingers brushed against his face, a smile, a little giggle. 'Come on. Here's you helm. Don't forget your swords.'

'Penelo?' A young man, a familiar face, eyes shared with a vengeful ghost. 'Penelo? What are you doing? Are you crazy?'

'Vaan, just wait!'

'Vaan, Penelo. Hurry, we must leave.' Basch held his tension in the hunch of his shoulders, the stiffness of his limbs. 'Vaan, cover Ashe. Penelo, let's go.'

'Basch, Wait! Noah's coming with us.'

'What?' The commanding officer stopped. Noah watched his brother weigh the girl's words, hesitating only a second. Noah pushed himself to his feet and took the potion Penelo offered. He downed it in one gulp, ready to go, knowing only that he should follow her.

'Basch, we can't leave him behind,' the girl said as she squeezed Noah's arm. Mist mingled with the pressure of her touch. He wanted her then, ashamed that lust sprang from little more than words of kindness. It took all of his will not to kiss her firmly on her lips. Instead, he fit his helm over his head.

'Of course,' Basch said. 'Noah, can you fight? We leave now.'

And he fought, body and soul, lunging at ephemeral mistmares, stabbing at the animated bones of ancient creatures. Foul fluids corroded his blades as he sliced at bullish beasts and knocked away statues that mocked him with demonic fury. This was no temple of the gods and, even if it was, the gods worshiped here were none he wished to follow.

When they stopped to rest, he sat next to the girl who fed him food from her pack and scrubbed dried blood from his hair. He fought to stay awake as she wrung out her cloth and started to wash cuts on his ear and his chin. She tipped soothing potions to his lips and, when she was done, he pressed his body close to her, as close as he could. In the darkness he spoke the words of a possessed man, not caring that he was unable to still his tongue. Lips to her ear, he whispered his vows just so he could hear her giggle. She freed a hand and moved it between their bodies, unfastening her leather armor, unbuttoning her shirt beneath it. At her invitation, his fingers learned all he could about her nipples and the near-ripe apples of her breasts. Her breath floated and leapt at his touch, the flutter of moth's wings on his cheek.

Those first nights, the tease of her touch left him impatient but he waited. He waited as he should, waited until she offered. The first night they made love he noticed his brother pretending not to watch. The girl reminded him of someone he has lost long ago in a fire of lies. He spoke a name he hadn't whispered for two decades. He forgot everyone else since, everything that had happened after leaving Landis.

Under moonlight in Ridorana, the girl's nakedness was all that mattered between the water and the sky. Blissful, he sunk into her skin, into the warmth of forgetting. He wanted to lay with her every night, every morning, until her belly swelled and their fathers met to announce their marriage. His brother would speak the blessings, his mother would manage the women who would prepare the feast. He whispered his secrets to her and then they slept without an inch of space between them, his cock resting against her thigh.

Never once did he ask why they wandered through jagd a thousand miles from their home. He never questioned how ragged his brother had become nor did he wonder about the strange names and faces of the people who traveled with them.

Without a word, he followed her into a YPA-GB47 fighter. Once they were aloft, they wandered back to the ship's stern, to a cozy cabin. He pushed aside oil rags, the spare bolts and screws from a collection of archaic guns. He stripped himself naked and knelt between the girls knees, speaking prayers he inscribed with the tip of his tongue. She shuddered as he held her flesh to his face and then she fell back. She let him inside her, her legs high around his waist, her fingers entwined with his, knuckles pressed into the bedsheets. He came as the airship dropped and rose sharply on the winds.

He might have slept for a few minutes beside her, she on her back, him curled around her body in the space under the curve of the ship's hull. Awake, he writhed his face between her small breasts. She kissed his wrist, her warm tongue circling over his pulse, giving him an erection that dug into her leg. After exchanging a glance, he was in her again, stubble scraping her cheek, wet kisses on her face. He begged her to say that she wanted him more than his brother. He begged until he was certain she had come while he was inside her. When she said yes, he sucked the needed word from her mouth.

.

.

.

Gabranth covers the bracelet with the edge of the handkerchief on which it sits. He realizes now why Basch kept an eye on him and Penelo for the last nine days. And he knows why his brother kept them far from Vaan and Lady Ashe. Why Penelo did not kill him in his sleep he does not know. And he can't understand why she shielded him from others who should seek to extract their revenge. Instead, the girl led a dead man down from the top of the Pharos, a man who has fed on the putrefying flesh of nations. Had she any sense she would have slit his throat. Instead, she bathed him in kisses, her sincerity wet on his naked skin.

He sucked down the last of the watery gin remaining his glass. Better to forget.

This city of pirates never asks for Imperial papers and official names. Come afternoon, he could board a cargo ship and set sail for a year of heavy labor. If he is lucky, storms will not drown him at sea. If he is luckier, Vayne will never find him. Gabranth's name is marked with death and he knows he cannot stay here.

He slides his head down to the bar, arms sprawled out, crucified against the wooden surface. His eyes are level with the charmed bracelet. Mist seeps up through the pores in the handkerchief's weave.

It was always easier to comply.

And easier still to slip the silver band over his wrist, waiting in simple ignorance for the gash of a blade to empty him of his blood. Even when drunk he hates his brother. Hates him for feigning pride when nothing but a failure. Gabranth's hand falls to his side, his cheek flaccid against varnished wood. He closes his eyes.

.

.

.

Living a lie is easiest, if only to forget the man who craved the power promised in the position of a judge. Once upon a time, a boy named Noah ran.

.

.

.

He slips off the stool and tries to stand upright as his eyes scan the room. Unsteady on his feet, he aims himself at the empty sofa against the wall. He steps forward until his body falls, dissolving in darkness, dizzy with drunkenness, knee cracks against wood, chin snaps. Blood in his mouth, on his lip. Hand fumbles for his face. Perhaps he's sitting upright, falling backward. For a moment his legs appear folded in improbable angles. He leans forward and claws himself up, grasping the upholstered leather of some heavy piece of furniture.

An explosion of sunlight bursts through a door and is blocked by the rush of frantic movement. A shout. A familiar voice. A hungry ghost with a taste for his blood. Gabranth drops to the floor, surrendering.

"Basch, I found him! He's in here!"


	4. A Day to Forget, part 2

_This chapter dedicated to __**heaven_monument** who wanted Noah, Vaan, Basch, and lots of drunkenness. _

* * *

**A Day To Forget - Part 2**

Gabranth is drunk.

He wants to finish his argument and complete the final words of his defense. It doesn't matter. He knows what the sentence will be. His tongue no longer remembers how to speak. His limbs are heavy. Lengths of rubber that have lost their form. An ocean of noise echoes between his ears. Around him, the tavern collapses into a flattened sheet of paper, another damning piece of evidence. He stumbles back and forth in blackness, his present state a series of snapshots hanging before him.

Voices surround him. Gabranth is now a beast with six legs, six arms, clumsy and clattering. Something heavy topples behind him. He turns or someone turns him, and he falls into an overstuffed chair, winged sides and upholstered armrests caging him.

"Easy, brother. Easy." His brother's voice rasps behind Gabranth's ear. Snap. The picture of a prisoner hauled in for justice.

Snap. The flash of a face, a hungry ghost seeking revenge.

"Then why are you still here?" The ghost of the prisoner Gabranth once took. "We got you back to Archades — Balfonheim — and Penelo cut you loose. So, why are you still sticking around? Are you gonna say it? Because I know why, but you aren't man enough to admit it."

"Vaan, stop. He's drunk. Let him be."

"Murderer. That's what we should call you, right?" A hard kick jolts his chair. "It's all because of you. I know what you want to hear. Right? Right? My brother died. Penelo's brothers died. Her parents died! And who do you think has taken care of her since then? Don't think life has been easy for us. And don't fool yourself into thinking she doesn't know what you did at the end of the war in Nalbina, because she knows just as well as I, but she still pulled you out of the Pharos. Just think about that. Or would you rather we just call you what you are. Traitor."

Another jolt. Gabranth is falling. His body tumbles with nothing to catch him in darkness's void. He lands in an angular world, hard-edged. Splinters of wood, splinters of cheekbone beneath his skin. Snap.

.

.

.

This is what it sounds like under the ocean, everything blurred and muffled and heavy.

"Vaan, help me get him up."

A flash of bright lights interrupts blackness. Gabranth knows his face is swelling. Wetness on his hand against his cheek. Basch is hauling him up, gripping beneath his arms. Gabranth does not know when they have him standing, but a series of images dropped in front of his eyes tells him they are staggering forward, their bodies surrounding his.

.

.

.

The stab of sunlight outside the tavern, the sting of saltwater air. He'll be left under the dock for the next high tide, for the stinging teeth of a school of fish-like monsters, the tops of their heads glowing like ghostly lanterns bobbing along the shore's edge at night. Morning will come and another magister's post will be vacant. No, his post has already been vacated.

Pier planks creak and bow under their feet, and a clatter of hollow footsteps echo below them. Footsteps of their shades. Everything around them stinks of mold. When they ditch him, and he'll be left to decay among the waterlogged footings of buildings that sink an inch every passing year. He can already feel the bitter rush of water filling his lungs. A choking constriction in his throat. He falls forward onto his hands and knees, vomiting over the edge of the pier, crouched low like a dog. Everything around him reeks of his bile. This is what dying is.

"Come on. We're almost there." Hands on his shoulder, straightening him up into the shape of man. A face held like a mirror in front of him. A folded cloth wiping his nostrils and mouth. "Noah, come. Let us help you walk."

Arms hooked under his armpits, hoisting him up. At his feet, vomit drips from the planks into the water below. His body bends forward again. An invisible punch in the gut taking him down. He is heaving. His stomach ripping out through his esophagus, and all the last of his dignity is robbed from him in the minutes before his death.

"We're not wasting a potion on you if you can't keep anything down." The hungry ghost has his hands on Gabranth's shoulders again. "And you're too heavy for us to carry, so you have no choice but to get up."

"Just let me die." He's chokes out the words of his sentence. Poison in his gut, knives in his throat. Death is never swift enough.

Snap.

.

.

.

He must have slept many hours. He's on his back on a lumpy mattress. A sweat soaked sheet slips from his body before his hand can catch it. His left arm hangs down from the bed. Skin is crusted with the stench of his moral failures. Barbed wire cuts inside his mouth. Runs down his throat. Ties knots around his heart. Beside him, his twin sleeps, jaw slackened and snoring loudly. His brother's face is still too narrow. Thin like a victim of famine, like an angry wraith.

Reks' brother snoozes by the door, body slumped over in a chair. The prison guard. Earlier, the bottle had been Gabranth's torturer.

He remembers it now, remembers enough to feel sickened.

.

.

.

Basch and Vaan found him in the tavern by the waterfront just before noon. That morning, Gabranth had gotten himself too drunk to leave, too drunk to fight back. After Vaan burst in, he ran over and grabbed Gabranth by his wrists, feeling through the cuffs of his shirt for that bracelet. "You didn't put it back on, did you?"

"No."

"Where is it?"

"Over there." He pointed with his chin toward the bar.

Vaan jogged over to the stool where Gabranth had sat. The thief's swift hands pocketed the bracelet still wrapped in a silken handkerchief.

By then, the bartender was no longer there. He must have slipped into the kitchen knowing trouble would start even though Gabranth had not carried a weapon on him since arriving in Balfonheim. Penelo disarmed him moments after he followed her onto the Strahl.

Vaan turned to Basch. "He's your brother. What do we do with him now?"

Basch strode toward Gabranth and clapped his hand on his shoulder. "Where will you go?"

"I am still a Magister. What does it matter to you? And I will not take aid from a traitor."

"Look here," Vaan spat. "He didn't offer you his help. He only wants to know where you're going."

"Vaan. He's drunk. Don't argue with him."

Tense as a desert beast, Vaan turned away and slipped behind the bar, fiddling with a stack of glasses, acting as if he was busy with something else.

Basch dropped his arm around Gabranth's shoulders. "I will offer you my aid if you ask it."

"Why? To put me in your debt? And what treachery will you require of me when you come seeking repayment?"

"I only offer my help. That is all."

"You offering me your help?" Gabranth shrugged his brother's arm away. "You never cared about my fate before. Not then. You cared nothing for what I wanted — what I needed — when I last asked for your aid. Now you dare offer it twenty years too late?"

"It needn't be like this."

"Brother, do you not mourn what we lost — what was stolen from us? Lives were stolen! Stolen from all of us. Are your ears deaf to the cries of our people's ghosts?"

"Look," Vaan interrupted, "we all lost people we cared about."

"This is none of your business," Gabranth spat back.

"Really, Noah? That's your real name, isn't it? Let me tell you, your business became mine the minute you started up with Penelo, following after her like a hound all the way down the Pharos and into that private cabin in the back of the Strahl. After the war, she's all the family I have left, and don't think she escaped the war without scars. Someone like you should know better than to let something like that happen."

"I had thought my business became yours when I left a knife in your brother." Alcohol had always sharpened his tongue more than anger. Gabranth expected Vaan to hit him. He braced himself, waiting for it.

Vaan sucked his breath hard, and was out from behind the bar in a few quick paces. Gabranth was read for the blow across his face that would surely come.

It didn't.

"My brother died because he fought for something he believed in," Vaan barked in Gabranth's face. "What about you? What did you believe in that night in Nalbina? And what about up in the Pharos the other week? Huh? You're just a coward, trying to send Ashe to take care of your business because you don't have the courage to stand up against Vayne."

"Vaan." Basch made a shushing sound. "Wait until he sobers."

Vaan poked his finger into Gabranth's chest. "Look, you still have your brother, right? And I still have Penelo." Vaan poked his finger again. "And I really hope you were careful when the two of you did what you did. She doesn't always think things through, and that's when she gets herself into trouble. And you — you're supposed to be a magister, right? Don't you know better? Or do you just think we're a bunch of dumb Dalmascans and you can do whatever you want with us because it doesn't matter?"

"Vaan!" Basch inturrupted. "Wait until he comes to his senses."

Words bubbled up with bile. "Stop," Gabranth cried. "Stop speaking of me as if incompetent."

"Far from it." Basch's arm was around him again.

"No. No, Basch. No. You never let me speak back then. Never. I knew they would lay siege to our town. But you never listened. You only did as you wished."

"I did what our people asked me to do."

"And you caused many of their deaths! Because of you, everything was taken from them and taken from me. Do you know what I saw? I watched them— I watched— " Words dissolved into sobs, and the sound of his voice was drowned out by keening ghosts.

Basch tightened his grip around Gabranth's shoulders, pulling him closer. The room started to spin and Gabranth fought to keep his eyes open.

"Look," Vaan said. "Lots of people fail to listen at the moment they should, but that was long ago, and we all have other things to worry about now. We all make mistakes, okay? Anyhow, you're a wreck. You can't stay here like this."

"Let me help you stand," Basch said. "Vaan, help steady him."

"No." Gabranth pushed his brother away. "You cannot take me anywhere. You cannot! I am still a magister. You have no right to place me in your custody."

"We are only concerned for your safety," Basch replied.

"My safety? My safety? You only seek to place me behind bars, or worse."

"We seek to help you into bed. You've drunk more than you can handle. You need sleep."

"Do not tell me where I can and cannot go, brother. You were the one who ordered me to stay home behind barred doors. Do not think me naive."

"Noah," Vaan interrupted. "Your brother is worried about you. Just because we're in Balfonheim doesn't mean no one will report us, and I'm pretty sure that a bunch of Imperial Hoplites have no more love for you than they have for us." Vaan sighed. "Just come back to the Manse with us, okay?"

"Why do you not seek my death?"

"What good would it do? Me and Penelo just want to live our lives. Anyhow, I know what happened. Vayne needed a witness. You were told to capture someone and make them believe Basch did it so they would testify against him in a trial. You probably just believed all of Vayne's lies, right? Basch said you're full of regret, but you just don't want to admit it. The truth is, you did something really stupid, but now it's done. So if you want to make things better, you'll just have to help us."

"You're only saying this to trick me."

"Believe what you want, you're still coming with us."

"Others would gut me and dump my body in the sea."

"Then I guess you're lucky others haven't found you yet."

"Vayne wants me dead! I know it! He will find me — find all of us. He'll seek his revenge."

Vaan put his hand on Gabranth's shoulder. "Which is why you're going to help us once you've slept off the booze."

"And what guarantee do I have that you will not take your revenge on me once all is done?"

"Noah, stop." Basch hushed him.

"No! All of you wish me dead. Admit it!" Gabranth had been ready the moment he stepped into the top of the Pharos. Let them spill his blood. Let them have a taste of the revenge they should seek. He and the all of the Empire deserved it.

"Alright, Basch," Vaan said. "Let's get this mess back to the manse. He needs to sleep this off."

Sour bile scorched Gabranth's throat, burning the back of his mouth. "All of you want me dead. Say it! Say it!"

.

.

.

He had been drunk, so drunk, drunker than he had ever let happen before.

.

.

.

Head pounding, Gabranth reaches for the fallen bed sheet, dragging it up, over his body. Basch still snores next to him. He wears a shirt that is ripped and stained. Lying together, they are a portrait of failure the world should burn and forget.

A knock on the door. Vaan wakes and jumps up just as the it begins to open. The boy's reflexes are fast, one hand against the doorframe, the other pushing hard against the edge of the door. His body blocks the narrow crack that has opened.

"Vaan, what's going on?"

"Penelo, not now."

"Is that Noah? Is he alright?"

There is whisper of words Gabranth cannot hear. Vaan pushes the door closed and clicks the lock into place.

"I cannot help you," Noah says, not looking at Vaan, not lifting his head. "I cannot."

.

.

.

* * *

_Next chapter is "Those who Lack Power," a Noah/Ashe/Basch mess in response to a request ellnyx made many, many months ago__... Sorry for the delay in this one. Life became too busy and writing the opening 800 words from the point of view of a terribly, terribly, *terribly* drunk person wasn't easy. Those words sat on my computer for way too long. __  
_


	5. She Who Lacks Power, part 1

**She Who Lacks Power - Part 1 of 2**

A small gleam of light catches Ashe's eye. Just beyond the bottom step of the flight of stairs leading into the Manse's unused servants' entrance, the last rays of the setting sun reveal the edge of something metal, something small.

Ashe bends down to investigate, squatting on the back of her heels. A thin metal band has been jammed between two of the dock's planks and it is covered in fresh dirt marked with a heavy boot print. She scrapes the muck away with her fingernail.

Yes. This is it.

Ashe glances over her left shoulder and then to her right. No one sees her. She draws a small dagger from her boot and uses the tip to work the silver bracelet free. Although caked with dirt along the top, the band appears to not have suffered any damage.

Vaan had been careless to let an item of power drop unnoticed. Ashe knows Vaan means to help, but he often when he acts he forgets to think. For most of the day Ashe puzzled over why Vaan, of all people, spent the morning searching for Gabranth and why he brought him back to the Manse. In the morning, Penelo had Basch send the Magister away. None of it made any sense.

Ashe toys with the bracelet, brushing away dirt with her thumb. Runes shimmer along the band's inner face. She tries to read them and recognizes the shapes of the ancient letters, but she is unable to decipher the words.

Ashe pockets the silver band. Crouched at the base of the stairs, she waits until the sun has set.

.

.

.

A few months back during their first visit to Balfonheim, Penelo stepped into an antiquities shop tucked away at the end of a back alley. Ashe had been with her that day, and Penelo purchased the bracelet without showing any concern that the item was illegal. No merchant of good repute could sell her the license required to carry it, but none of that stopped the transaction from occurring.

The dealer watched the girl as she stepped high on her toes, twirling to the music that played in the shop. "So, you've dabbled in the veiled arts and know the ways of the Dancer," the dealer said.

Penelo swayed her hips as she performed the first few steps of a powerful charm, but she only mimicked the movements rather than let herself fall into the light trance required to raise the charm's effect. The girl giggled as if it was all an innocent act. Meanwhile, the dealer eyed her narrow waist and the curve of her hips. Ashe thought him lecherous until she realized he was only hungry for a sale.

"Come take a look in the back," he beckoned Penelo to follow him. "I've a few rare trinkets you might like."

The girl bought the bangle for a sum of gil nearly as much as Basch's new sword, but never once had Penelo understood the power she held. It was little different from when Larsa gave her the gem of manufaced nethicite that she referred to as her good luck charm. And all of this confirmed what Ashe already knew: someone like Penelo was not meant to be a leader of men. Still, Penelo is a faithful subject most of the time.

.

.

.

Keeping her body low and close to the building, Ashe skirts along the back side of the manse. When she comes to a ladder that hangs over the side of the dock, she steals one last look to her left and to her right. She's still alone. Swinging her legs over the edge, Ashe begins her climb down into the darkness below.

The tide is out, and she knows it has left the wet sand flats exposed along the length of the dock. No one will see her as she crosses the empty beach. She'll head to the city's shopping district to purchase potions, and return an hour later as if her only destination had been the merchants' stalls.

Neither Vaan nor Penelo will know until after all has been done. In time, they'll understand why. Without a new shard, Dalmasca must take power that can be found. Ashe is doing this for her people, and her people will thank her once their freedom has been returned.

.

.

.

The wet sand is firm beneath the soles of her boots. Her pace is quick as her fingers grip the hilt of a poisoned blade. No matter what happens, she will not die in the jaws of a creature who knows nothing but hunger.

The sky to the west darkens as she follows the curve of the beach, heading up to the docks that line Balfonheim's center of trade.

She can see the lights of the tavern, the people spilling out onto the deck behind it. They hunt for empty tables where they can wash down their evening meal with a mug of ale. It is the same tavern where Vaan found Gabranth after Penelo sent him away. Penelo and Fran are probably there now, and Balthier with them, the pirate ignoring them yet still leading strangers to presume he will bed both women after they leave. The pirate is shameless, but Balthier is right to do what he does. Few men of Balfonheim follow a moral code, and they act as poorly as salaried soldiers, speaking crude words while they swill pint after pint of ale.

The slick surface of an unexpected stone suddenly makes her foot to slip. Her ankle twists, causing her leg to bow painfully, but after stumbling for the length of an indrawn breath, Ashe regains her balance. She quickens her pace across the remaining beachfront.

She misses Vossler, misses him more now than she has for many months. The Yensa now seems half a world away, but she whispers her forgiveness into the chilly darkness.

"I'm sorry I was not who you needed me to be."

And, as an afterthought, "I think I now know who I am meant to be."

There is no sound of acknowledgment apart from the light huffs of her breath.

Vossler had only done what he thought best during the worst of his weakness. But in his weakness he failed to trust her. But she has been the one who was weak, the one who had faltered. And she never should have blamed him, never should have spat those final words in his face. The accusation of broken trust still burns on her lips. She knows she carries a dark venom in her blood. Everyone else thought the poison would consumer her, but it has not. It will not. She has proven it. On top of the Pharos, not one of Gabranth's words incited her to bite a hole though the flesh of the world.

There is no power to be found in the pangs of remorse.

Power is silent.

But power is meaningless when standing alone. Who will willingly stand beside her? Basch raised his sword in her name only because his brother's challenge demanded it, and she still cannot trust him. Basch has never trusted her. He thinks she is politically naive and unwilling to negotiate. Since leaving Jahara, he attends to the counsel of a commonborn girl more than the commands of his Queen. He insists on contradicting her or saying nothing at all. It is clear to Ashe that Basch has abandoned his oath to the Order. Ever since Vossler left them, Basch has played the part of the masterless knight, but deep down, she knows Basch seeks the life of a freeman. He's lost all desire to lead soldiers into battle at his Sovereign's command.

She never sought anything from Basch, anyhow. But Balthier...? Even he appears to be withdrawing his aid. It seems in the end, he only cared to settle matters with his father. Soon he and Fran will leave too.

So, who has she left? Vaan? She forces herself to laugh. Vaan wants nothing more than a life of piracy, swift-winged airships that fly him high above squabblings of nations. But Vaan is kind. He aided her atop the Pharos, and she will always remember the magnitude of what he had offered.

.

.

.

High on the beach, the dry sand slows her pace and steals her strength with every stride. She looks back. One by one, all of the lights in the Manse are being lit. The great building looks as if it is being set on fire and sent off to burn at sea.

When she returns to the Manse, she cannot submit to Al-Cid's offer of protection. Her father might have wanted her to make that choice, given how few options are left. Without the sword or the shard, she no longer retains a single claim to her family's name. What has Dalamsca left? Al-Cid's word that she is her father's daughter? Or Larsa's? But she still has another option that does not require Dalmasca's surrender.

Ashe reaches the base of causeway at the top of the beach. Rather than climb the stairs up, she leans against one of the wooden posts underneath. In the pitch-black void, heavy footsteps from above echo around her. The sounds of this place remind her of Vossler, of how he issued her commands to their men while she stood hidden in empty passages beneath Lowtown.

Never once should she have doubted her right to command. She should have never let herself be sent to Ondore so obediently. Had she not, Vossler would never had the chance to lose his faith. He would still be here. She has needed a Captain of the Order ever since he left her. Vossler carried out her commands whereas Basch refuses. Basch expects her to do everything on her own.

"It is not my duty to forge your alliances," Basch said one night Ozmone. "Do not think to rely on me as you have relied on Vossler. No good will come of it."

She wonders if Basch is still with his brother at the Manse, or if he has gone to the tavern to drink with the pirates and then stumble through a dance with Penelo. More and more, Basch spends his evenings trying to forget. His disinterest hurts, but she can no longer hate him for that. His pledge of duty died with her father, not with her.


End file.
